Shedding DRM Hasn't Increased Piracy Says Sci-Fi Publisher Tor

If you're a fan of science fiction books, odds are you've read something published by Tor Books. Tor is the largest publisher of science fiction content in the world. Last April the company decided to shed all digital rights management in its digital e-books. The move was met with concern from competitors that piracy would run rampant.

When the company ditched DRM, it said that DRM was preventing its buyers from using their legitimate purchases in perfectly legal ways. One of those perfectly legal ways that Tor said its readers were unable to use their books was in switching between different digital readers. The publisher has now offered up an update a year after it ditched DRM.

According to a company spokesman named Julie Crisp the company has seen "no discernible increase in piracy on any of our titles." You read that right, after having no DRM for a year the company says piracy hasn't increased. Tor's customers were very happy at the announcement that the company would remove any anti-piracy protections from its books.

Tor says that it's authors were also very happy to sign up to have their books published without DRM. However, a letter the turned up from Hachette UK, another book publisher, said that the DRM free books from Tor would make it difficult for it to protect its own rights. In other words, Hachette feared it would be forced to follow suit with no DRM.

[via Arstechnica]